


Leaving Home Ain't Easy (But Sometimes It's The Only Way)

by diadema



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Character Study, Found Family, Gen, Inspired by Music, Short & Sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-22
Updated: 2018-10-22
Packaged: 2019-08-06 03:16:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16380374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/diadema/pseuds/diadema
Summary: The members of the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement have all been uprooted in one form or another.





	Leaving Home Ain't Easy (But Sometimes It's The Only Way)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Somedeepmystery](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Somedeepmystery/gifts).



> Happy belated friendship anniversary, my love! I was SO certain it was tomorrow, but I hope you will forgive me! I don't even have words to express how much you mean to me or all that you've done for me this past year. Especially in these last few weeks that haven't always been easy, you've been there to virtually hold my hand every step of the way. Always so generous with your time and with your support and such a bright, steady presence. How did I ever get so lucky to have you in my life? I hope you enjoy this little offering, late it is. <3
> 
> Title inspired by Queen's "Leaving Home Ain't Easy". Thank you all so much for reading! Comments are always appreciated. :)

At sixteen years of age, Napoleon Solo is old enough to bear the weight of the world but too young to serve his country. He is the crown prince of a crowded tenement kingdom—a New York of grit rather than glamor, the dogged pursuit of the American Dream. All around him, the people are in various states of _becoming._ They are hounds forever chasing, Sisyphus forever toiling. There is no respite, no rewards for their labors. Only aching backs and the strained belief that tomorrow might be different.

That’s assuming there _will_ be a tomorrow.

War rages half a world away, but it is not the only threat that faces him. Time is steadily encroaching, eating up the ground beneath his feet. Opportunity retreats with the tide. And Fate? She passes over him repeatedly, calls it _mercy_ to pluck other recruits for Her army. Men with souls too young and eyes too wide to understand. Napoleon fosters no such delusions. He sees the summit, the prospect of rest, and digs his heels a little deeper. One more _push_ and he can finally be free.

What is War to a man who has spent all of his life fighting? His kingdom is shrinking before his eyes, and he will _not_ be left behind.

His parents sought out foreign shores with little more than courage and the _hope_ of reinvention. _How could they blame him for wanting to do the same?_

The draft card is burning a hole in his pocket. _1-A,_ it reads. _Available for military service._ Napoleon has been carrying it with him for days, harboring it like the sacred piece of contraband it is. He had lied on his enlistment form.

It hadn’t mattered.

Perhaps Fate _is_ on his side after all.

Napoleon’s bags are packed, the preparations made in secret. There is a sealed note for his parents tucked neatly beneath his pillow. He won’t apologize to them for leaving, but he does promise to write.

Dinner that evening is a quiet affair. Each moment is weighted, carefully committed to memory. A rationed feast, home-cooked and flavorful. Quiet conversation that says little but has everything behind it. The company of loved ones. These are simple comforts, yet somehow, they are all that he needs.

After the dishes have been cleared away, his parents turn to face him with solemn, knowing eyes. There’s no way that they could have known, but then again, they are the _only_ ones who could ever see through him.

His father claps him on the shoulder, and Napoleon tenses. He braces himself for a fight that doesn’t come. All the man says instead is, “Lion.”

For once, the nickname doesn’t bother him.

Gavin Solo— _3-A, man with dependents—_ offers his son a crooked smile as he slips the signet ring from his finger. Before Napoleon can protest, the heavy, gold band is being pressed into his palm. Calloused fingers curl his own over it.

It is a gentleman’s ring. The only pretense of wealth or heritage his father has. Too precious a gift to be wasted on him. _“Arrah,”_ his father scoffs, voice as rough as the hands that clasp his now. “May God give you sense.”

He can only nod in response.

The backs of Napoleon’s eyes are prickling, but he refuses to surrender to it. His father pulls him into a bear hug—too tight and too quick for the force of emotion behind it. Gavin drags the cuff of his sleeve over his face as he retreats back to the kitchen.

That leaves Napoleon alone with his mother. His gaze is swimming but he meets hers steadily, bends to kiss her cheek. He makes her promise to take care of herself while he is away. That earns him a swat on the arm and (as he’d hoped) a smile to her face. She laughs through her tears and tugs him back down to her.

His mother holds him close, and Napoleon could live in that moment forever. But he can only keep Fate waiting for so long.

Early the next morning, he steals out of the tenement, armed with his father’s ring and his mother’s blessings. His kingdom recedes in the distance, but he doesn’t look back. He is Sisyphus triumphant. The boulder rolls to its natural conclusion as he leaves his world behind.

 

* * *

 

Eighteen years later, the man better known as ‘Solo’ is strolling into a garage in East Berlin to convince a mechanic there to do the same. Gabriella Teller is nothing like he expects. She is more danger than damsel, sharp-edged and shadowed, with a darkness he feels echo inside him.

It puts his own guard up.

The young woman doesn’t fall for his charm nor _jump_ at the freedom he dangles before her. She stares him down, an Iron Curtain in miniature, infinitely foreboding and just _daring_ him to try and break through. But, as Solo knows, every Wall has its weak points.  

He goes on the offensive, casing her like a safe, paying attention to the subtlest cues as he hones in on the proper buttons to push. He details her father’s life without her and learns to read between the lines of her anger _._ There is pain, longing, and a sparking, grim resilience that fascinates him.

The victory is a hollow one—if not for the stubborn prickling of his conscience, then for the apparent redundancy of his role here. He gets her to the West, yes, but it only takes a few moments in her presence to know that she would have gotten there with _or without_ him.

It was always going to be a matter of time before she made it out.

That night, Solo contemplates pairing the wine with honesty. _I know what it’s like to leave everything behind,_ he could tell her, finding inexplicably that he almost… _wants_ to. It unsettles him. But what could he _possibly_ say that she doesn’t already know? That she hasn’t already prepared for?

Still, the words are on his lips as he hands her the glass. She looks up, and Solo sees it in her eyes then—the ghost of his own, lost childhood—and he falters.

He settles on a glib comment about the vintage instead and sets to work on his risotto.

 

* * *

 

A few days later, Solo is hovering over a suitcase, making small talk as he reaches for his gun. His gaze flicks, almost reflexively, to his signet ring, and he hesitates. It is a quick calculation, only _this_ time, it’s not about keeping score.

“Almost forgot. Got something for you.”

The man’s eyes flare with recognition. A bewildered relief that is almost painful to witness. Solo has read up on his opposite number, has seen a troubled childhood and a turbulent adolescence catalogued with chillingly clinical detachment.

Peril’s father had been branded a traitor, but it has been his son who has paid for it: wrenched away from his mother at a tender age, then funneled from the orphanage to the military and, finally, to the KGB.

At least Solo had _chosen_ to leave his family—though it hadn’t been by choice that he’d been returned to them. Once more, he has been conscripted into service for Uncle Sam, while the man before him has willingly, almost _slavishly_ dedicated himself to his country.

What a pair, what a paradox they make as they toast their treason on the balcony: two men on opposing sides, carrying a piece of their fathers with them, as a computer disk burns between them.

It is in that moment that Solo wonders, not for the first time, if he and the Russian are more similar than he thinks.

 

* * *

 

In the fledgling days of the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement, Solo discovers more about his new handler than he’d anticipated. Only one line in the stolen file, though, interests him. _Second son of the Earl of Brinscote, relinquished title._

Alexander Waverly had had everything. Then, somewhere along the way, choice or circumstance had driven him to rebuild his life from scratch. Certainly, though, the once-aristocrat and former opium addict has done well for himself. Solo can’t imagine UNCLE existing under anyone less.

But, perhaps, that is part of the allure, of the impossibility their agency belies. It is incredible to think about how they all had gotten here: four loose threads that Fate decided to weave into a new tapestry.

He considers his own unlikely journey: his rises and falls from grace that led him here. None of it at all possible if he hadn’t taken that first step.

There is nothing easy about leaving home. Nothing simple about starting over. But as Napoleon Solo looks down at the mission brief in his hands—a new agency, a greater purpose—he begins to realize that sometimes, it may be the only way.

**Author's Note:**

> Gavin Solo is Sdm's OC. I love him dearly. <3 
> 
> For further info on the "selective service classifications" - http://www.cufon.org/CRG/memo/74911231.html 
> 
> "Arrah, God give you sense" is less an Irish blessing than an exasperated phrase of affection. :)
> 
> Thanks again for reading!


End file.
